Tenebaum petitioned for the US supreme court to review the case, claiming the US Copyright Act, which he claims is unconstitutional. Without comment, the court refused to hear Tenenbaum's challenge.

The case will now return to a federal judge in Boston, who will decide whether the fine against Tenenbaum will stand.

"They're trying to create an urban legend out of me – the kid who downloaded music," he told the Guardian.

Though Tennenbaum is being charged for downloading and distributing 30 songs, including Eminem's My Name Is and Beastie Boys' (You Gotta) Fight for Your Right (To Party), Sony gave evidence that Tenenbaum was downloading and distributing thousands of songs over the course of several years. RIAA focused on only 30 songs for efficiency.

"We're pleased with the decision," an RIAA spokesperson said in a statement.

Tenenbaum, now 28, who graduated on Sunday from BU with a doctorate in statistical physics, is one of more than 12,000 people the Recording Industry Association of America sued in the mid-2000s for illegally sharing music. All but two of those cases were either dismissed or settled out of court.

Jammie Thomas-Rasset, the only other person to go to trial for copyright infringement, has been in and out of court since 2007. A judge last year reduced the penalty imposed on Thomas-Rasset from $1.5m to $54,000, and an appeals court has scheduled arguments next month for her.

(Both Thomas-Rasset and Tenenbaum have Iris by the Goo Goo Dolls on their prosecution playlist.)

RIAA wrote that they offered Tenenbaum to settle for $5,000 at the start, but claim he rejected all their settlement offers. Tenenbaum told the Guardian he offered RIAA $5,250, but the RIAA wanted $12,000.

"That didn't strike me as a negotiation," Tenenbaum told the Guardian. "That struck me as them dictating terms without fair trial or process."

In court documents, the record companies say that Tenenbaum continued downloading for two years after they sent him a letter notifying him that his conduct was illegal and warning him of impending legal action.

The Electronic Frontier Foundation, a non-profit membership organization working to protect the rights of technology users, filed a brief oh behalf of Tenenbaum in the original case.

"One thing that for sure is that it didn't put a dent in the exponential growth of peer to peer file-sharing," Corynee McSherry, intellectual property director at the EFF, told the Guardian.